The differences between Donald J. Trump and Jim Mattis were on display
in their statements on December 20. While Trump wrote in a tweet that
his defense secretary was “retiring” at the end of February; Mattis made clear he was resigning over policy differences with the president.

The United States needs to take a hard look at its national security
policies and focus its attention on investing in defensive, as well as
offensive, measures to deal with cyber threats, US Sen. Mark Warner
(D-VA) said at the Atlantic Council’s Annual Forum in Washington on
December 14.

Despite US President Donald J. Trump’s threat to pull the United States
out of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), it will be much
harder to kill NAFTA if the US Congress does not approve a revised trade
deal, said Jesús Seade, who served as then Mexican President-elect
Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s chief NAFTA negotiator in recently
concluded, and often contentious, negotiations.

US President Donald J. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on
December 1 agreed to a truce in their trade war in order to allow time
for negotiations. In what is a significant de-escalation of a conflict
that has been marked by tit-for-tat tariffs, Trump and Xi put on hold
threatened tariff increases for ninety days.